Kouvalda felt bored amongst this set of people; there was not one worthy to hear his eloquence, or capable of understanding it.
"Where the devil can the schoolmaster be?" he said, expressing his thought aloud.
Martianoff looked at him and said—
"He will return."
"I am certain he will come back on foot, and not in a carriage! Let us drink to your future, you born convict. If you murder a man who has got some money, go shares with me. Then, old chap, I shall start for America, make tracks for those lampas—pampas—what do you call them? I shall go there, and rise at length to be President of the United States. Then I shall declare war against Europe, and won't I give it them hot? As to an army, I shall buy mercenaries in Europe itself. I shall invite the French, the Germans, and the Turks, and the whole lot of them, and I shall use them to beat their own relations. Just as Ilia de Mouronetz conquered the Tartars with the Tartars. With money one can become even an Ilia, and destroy Europe, and hire Judah Petounnikoff as one's servant. He'd work if one gave him a hundred roubles a month, that he would, I'm sure. But he'd be a bad servant; he'd begin by stealing."
"And besides, a thin woman is better than a fat one, because she costs less," eagerly continued the deacon. "My first deaconess used to buy twelve yards for a dress, and the second one only ten. It's the same with food."
"Tarass and a half" smiled deprecatingly, turned his face towards the deacon, fixed his one eye on him, and shyly suggested in an embarrassed tone—"I also had a wife once."
"That may happen to anybody," observed Kouvalda. "Go on with your lies!"
"She was thin, but she ate a great deal; it was even the cause of her death."
"You poisoned her, you one-eyed beggar!" said "Scraps," with conviction.